CAPITOL HILL AT ODDS OVER SPACE REFORMS. The dramatically differing
approaches of the House and Senate for overhauling commercial space regulations
became clearer this week with the markup of a bill that cleared the Senate
Commerce Committee and sets up a clash not only between both chambers but also
likely with the Trump White House.

But the Senate bill leaves many responsibilities in the Transportation
Department. For example, the proposed
Space Frontier Act establishes an assistant secretary for commercial
transportation within the Federal Aviation Administration, directs the
department to reform existing launch regulations within a year and urges it to
use all existing authorities to speed up the process.

“For companies who are experimenting with exciting new commercial activities
in space, the bill clarifies that they can continue to seek authorization
through the Department of Transportation’s payload review process while
Congress ponders more expansive changes to agency authorities,” Sen. Bill
Nelson (D-Fla.), a co-sponsor of the bipartisan bill, explained in a statement.

The panel also adopted an amendment by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) to
require a study on military sites used for commercial space launches and
reentries and another from Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), which
states it’s the “policy of the United States to have consistent standards
across federal agencies that minimize the risk from orbital debris.”

The Trump test. Would the president sign the Senate bill? That’s
tough to imagine, says Brian Weeden, director of program planning at the
Secure World Foundation, a
private foundation focused on peaceful access to space. “The space policy
directives were the product of an interagency process with inputs from all the
major players,” he explains. “They reflect not only the perspective of the
White House, but also the consensus of all the agencies involved, so I find it
very difficult to believe they would go along with such a radical shift.” In
fact, Weeden believes the Senate bill could “stall ... significant portions” of
the White House reforms.

There's widespread agreement in at least one area: the need to speed
up the licensing process for Earth observation satellites to within 90 days —
with applications automatically approved if the government fails to respond in
that time frame.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill
that would keep most oversight of commercial space within the Transportation
Department — not the Commerce Department, as called for by legislation in the
House and recent directives from President Donald Trump. | Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty
Images

SPACE FORCE UPDATE: Congress may be holding off until next year to
consider legislation to create a new branch of the military but the Pentagon is
raring to go in carrying out Trump’s marching orders — as laid out in a draft
report obtained this week by our friends at
Defense One.

The road map saysthe Pentagon plans to create three of the four
main components for a Space Force: a combat command, an agency to oversee
the acquisition of satellites, and a community of space warfighters drawn from
all branches of the military. Formally establishing a separate branch of the
armed forces would have to wait for Congress, the Pentagon acknowledges.

The Pentagon was scheduled to roll out its report, which was required by
Congress, but a Tuesday briefing with Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan was
postponed without explanation. “We are in the final coordination stages of the
report to Congress on the recommended organization and management structure of
space components for the Department of Defense. We will release the report when
coordination is complete which we anticipate will be soon,” Lt. Col. Jamie
Davis said in a statement.

But more influential players are raising questions about the wisdom
of a new military branch, including former Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee
James, who warned this week the effort involved would drain resources and
impede progress on speeding up the acquisition of space systems.

"Anybody who thinks this can be done on the cheap, I think they're
wrong,” she told a
discussion hosted by the Brookings Institution. “I think it will sap
resources away that could otherwise go to capabilities,” James added. “I think
there will be a ton of workforce issues. You can organize and reorganize in any
way you could think of, but the real question is the juice worth the squeeze?
You will spend years ... I'll bet it's five to 10. ... Eventually, it'll settle
out, but you will go through years of thrashing.”

Her remarks were widely seen as channeling Air Force leaders, who are not
keen on such an overhaul. “None of them are in favor of a Space Force, I say
none of the top leaders, but they’re stuck,” James said. “The president has
said it and it will be interesting to see how they now deal with it.”

A more effective approach, in her view, is the National Defense
Authorization Act’s new mandate that the Pentagon create a space command under
the U.S. Strategic Command.

DON’T BELIEVE THE HYPE? The raison d’etre of the Space Force
proposal is what military and political leaders describe as the growing threat
posed by Russia and China in space. But there remains a dearth of independent
public information to fully assess those warnings, says Weeden, of the Secure
World Foundation, which he describes as part think tank, part charitable
organization.

“There’s been increasing rhetoric ... about the militarization of space
and the potential for conflicts on Earth to extend into space,” says Weeden,
who earlier this year completed a
detailed assessment of “counter-space” capabilities. “That’s driven in part
by reports about anti-satellite testing in Russia and China...The report really
grew out of our frustration at the level of publicly available information on
this topic.”

He adds: “A lot of what you get are public statements from military
leadership or politicians...and it’s really hard to get down to details
and...sort through what might be real, what might be hype.”

The good news is that the worst case scenarios have yet to materialize
— what he describes as “the most destructive kinetic attacks that can cause
really harmful long-term damage to the space environment,” or “weapons to blow
up satellites.”

“While there is research and development going on to develop those
capabilities," he says, "what we found is there’s yet to be any publicly-known
example of them being used. Instead, “what seems to be of the most utility are
the non-kinetic things, like jamming and cyber attacks.”

“Cautiously skeptical." That's Weeden's take on whether a Space Force
is needed.“The Space Force debate is really about how should the
national security space community be organized,” he explains. “A lot of people
pushing for a Space Force or Space Corps are doing it because they’re
frustrated the Air Force has not, in their minds, done enough to address these
challenges.”

“I have two big concerns: one is that we’re going to put a lot of time,
energy, and resources into doing the reorganization instead of actually fixing
the problems. The other is creating a separate Space Force is going to have the
unintended consequence of hurting integration of space with the rest of the
military’s capabilities.”

Weeden also unpacked the various pieces of legislation on commercial space
moving through Congress, the foundation’s work in crafting international
guidelines, and how it’s partnering with the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency to come up with standards for servicing satellites in orbit. Read the
full interview
here.

Is the threat of a space war with Russia and China being
overblown? "It’s really hard to get down to details and...sort through what
might be real, what might be hype," says Brian Weeden of the Secure World
Foundation | POLITICO

MILITARY SPACE DEPOTS? The Pentagon is already eyeing the possibility
of storing combat gear in orbit, a top general responsible for moving troops
and equipment around the globe told defense reporters Thursday, predicting such
“mobility in space” within a decade.

“What happens if we preposition cargo in space? I don’t have to use a
water means, I don’t have to use terrestrial means. I can send a vehicle in
space and come back down,” said Gen. Carlton Everhart, commander of the Air
Mobility Command. “It could be a Humvee. I’m willing to stick anything up
there” if it means getting it to ground forces in a hot spot more quickly when
war breaks out.

Everhart, who said he visited SpaceX and Virgin Orbit last week, called it
an area ripe for partnership with the commercial space industry. “I think
within the next five years we can be right in on that concept stage, and within
five years after that it’ll be happening,” Everhart predicted. He said that
while cooperation with industry in this area is in an “embryonic stage,” he’s
confident that companies will “come up with innovative ways and they won’t be
encumbered by a long acquisition process.”

FROM RUSSIA WITH ... MORE ROCKET ENGINES. There’s little that gets
some Democrats and Republicans to grit their teeth more than to remind them
that one of the military’s largest space launch providers, the Boeing-Lockheed
joint venture United Launch Alliance, remains dependent on the Russian-made
RD-180 engine for the first stage of its Atlas V rocket. (Well, maybe the fact
that the Russians are transporting American astronauts to the International
Space Station burns them up more).

But ULA apparently has little choice than to keep those engines coming
— and just ordered more, according to
several
reports out of Moscow. Congress has taken a series of steps in recent years
to ensure a U.S. alternative is developed for the next-generation of ULA launch
vehicles — including
banning any purchases of the RD-180 for national security missions beyond
2022.

ULA said in a statement that the Atlas V “continues to be very popular in
both the civil and commercial markets and RD-180 engines will be used for those
missions.” But it also looked ahead. “Now is the right time to develop an
American enginefor Vulcan Centaur, ULA's future launch vehicle,” it
said in a statement. “That is why we have been working for two years with both
Blue Origin to develop its BE-4 engine and Aerojet Rocketdyne to develop its
AR-1 engine.”

The Russians
trolled the U.S. space launch industry with the news, however. The
embassy in Washington
rubbed it in by declaring the RD-180 design by Energomash “cheaper and more
reliable.” The Russians also report that the engine has been
certified by NASA and the Air Force for crewed space missions.

STARLINER SPACECRAFT DELAYED: A test flight of Boeing’s CST-100
Starliner will be delayed until late this year or early next after the capsule
experienced problems with its abort engines, John Mulholland, vice president
and program manager of Boeing’s commercial crew program, announced this week.
Mulholland said he’s “confident” Boeing has figured out why several abort
engine valves did not fully close, and said the company is “implementing
corrective actions now.”

NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is developing two capsules to eventually
deliver American astronauts to the International Space Station. One is the
Starliner, and the other is SpaceX’s Dragon.

The Starliner delay will push Boeing’s first crewed test flight to the
middle of 2019 — significantly later than the initial plan for this November.
SpaceX is expected to make its first crewed flight in April 2019, according to
an updated test schedule
published Thursday by NASA, making it clear that both offerings still have
a
ways to go, as NASA’s safety board advised this week.

But today is still the big NASA announcement of the first crew of
astronauts to fly in each capsule under the Commercial Crew Program — to be
live
streamed from Houston at 11 a.m.

NASA DOUSES ISS PRIVATIZATION, MARS TERRAFORMING. NASA splashed more
cold water this week on the viability of the Trump administration’s plan to
privatize the International Space Station by 2025 and also dashed any hopes
that the atmosphere on Mars could be modified anytime soon to support long-term
colonization.

The NASA inspector general’s
conclusions
on the ISS plan are bound to strengthen the arguments of the powerful bloc of
lawmakers who want to maintain NASA’s role in running the ISS for years to
come, including the proposed Senate bill’s mandate of at least until 2030. As
for creating an Earth-like atmosphere on Mars or other planets? “Not Possible
Using Present-Day Technology,” another new NASA
study proclaims.

TOP DOC: White House outlines space R&D
priorities. As agencies develop budget priorities for fiscal year 2020,
they should give special attention to spaceexploration and other
potential breakthroughs in orbit that could have significant applications on
Earth, according to
a memo from the White House Office of Management and Budget that went to
executive branch agencies this week. They include long-duration spaceflight,
in-space and additive manufacturing, biopharmaceuticals, materials science and
optical communication. “Research investments should be focused on ensuring
American leadership in space,” it says. “Agencies should prioritize
demonstrations and flight tests to ensure an industrial base for commercial
activity in space and on celestial bodies.”

But what’s missing? Any direct reference to climate science or the
environment, as pointed out in this
commentary posted overnight. It notes that the White House memo coincided
this week with more dire government
warnings about
climate change. And a new public opinion poll also indicates that Americans
believe climate change research should be top a NASA priority.

TOP DOC II: Hitch rides to space, government urged. Placing more
government payloads on commercial satellites could help speed up the timeline
to get sensors and communications equipment into orbit, according to a new
report from the Government Accountability Office. Such “hosted payloads”
have already saved the Pentagon hundreds of millions of dollars but some
military officials still believe it is “too difficult” to match government
programs to commercial satellites, GAO found. The report recommends that the
Defense Department require all programs that rely on commercial satellites
share their data with a central office — possibly the Air Force Hosted Payload
Office — to encourage wider use of the approach.

One government agency, however, is seeking commercial players to ride
along on one of its upcoming missions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration this week
announced it wants to enlist small satellite developers for a new
“rideshare” program on the launch of the Joint Polar Satellite System-2,
scheduled for 2022.

It’s part of an effort to study what the future space-based weather system
should look like and if “future satellite instruments with lower cost and/or
increased performance could provide significant benefit in NOAA’s future
observing systems,” the agency says. “This will give them a relatively low cost
opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities,” explains Karen St. Germain,
director of NOAA’s Office of Systems Architecture and Advanced Planning.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “What steps do we need to be taking so that we
don’t have to rely on sending Bruce Willis to space to save humanity?” — Sen.
Ted Cruz to Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA, on the planetary
threat of asteroids, at a Commerce Committee hearing, Aug. 1, 2018, (They both
said they’re fans of the film "Armageddon.")